“So you mentioned a few days ago that your mother has a bakery?” Adam asked, out of the blue. “And you said she needs a new roof?”
“Well, she recently got student loans to go to college, because she never got her degree and always wanted to. So she hired someone and cut back to part-time at the bakery to take classes. And of course the minute she did the mortgage crisis hit and the economy slowed down business and the roof of her house started leaking.” Nikki’s bliss and buzz began to fade as worry about her mother kicked in again.
“If she got a loan, I’d move in with her to help with the payments, but we really drive each other crazy. She has all of these plants inside and several cats. While I like plants and cats, these particular cats pee in the plants and dig in them and knock them over all the time. So her house smells and there’s potting soil everywhere and I can’t take it.”
Adam wrinkled his nose. “Yeah, I can see how that would be off-putting.”
“And she’s a book person, while I’m a music and TV person. The sound drives her crazy, especially while she’s studying, and I can’t always wear headphones….” Nikki shrugged.
“Well, I know someone at a big bank who might be able to get her a lower monthly payment and possibly a home-improvement loan for the roof.”
“You do?”
He nodded. “My sister. She’s a vice president with SunBelt Securities.”
Securities—
the word made her think of the
Forbes
article she’d read,
Securities and the Single Mom.
The business idea she’d had was still lodged in her brain. She envisioned a center of some kind, where single moms could get low-cost education and training in different areas—financial planning, avoiding insurance pitfalls, tax accounting, useful business software. Not that she was some kind of guru herself on these matters, but she had a basic knowledge from her B.A. in business. And she could hire people and get grants and subsidies for the women who came in for help.
Aloud she said, “I didn’t know you had a sister.”
“Now you do. She and my brother are quite a bit older than I am. I was the ‘oops’ baby after a very festive New Year’s Eve.” He laughed. “Born on Labor Day, too. The irony did not escape my mom.”
Nikki shook her head, smiling.
“Sometimes I kid her that she really named me Damn, but stuck an A on it at the last minute. Because she had to be cussing up a storm when she had me at age forty-three.”
“I’m sure she felt very blessed.”
“I doubt it,” Adam said with a smirk. “I was a real handful.”
“But now you’ll be the doctor in the family. She must be very proud.”
“Well, I had to do something to make up for all the white hair I caused her, right?”
Their entrées arrived, mahi-mahi for Nikki and a lamb dish for Adam. The aromas from both dishes enticed her, and they sampled each other’s. She normally didn’t care for lamb much, but this was so tender and so good that it melted in her mouth.
Her fish was equally wonderful, light and flaky and served with a subtle, buttery wine sauce that she was sure she’d dream about later.
“So what is your mother studying?” Adam asked, after a few mouthfuls.
“Education,” Nikki told him. “She wants to be a teacher.”
“That’s brave of her.”
“Yes, but she’ll be a great one. She has endless amounts of patience and she loves kids. She’s a natural.”
“What grade level?”
“She hopes to teach fourth or fifth grade. That’s her favorite age. She says there are too many hormones to deal with after that.”
“Very true. So would she close the bakery, then?”
“She’s not sure. She’s dropped some hints about me taking it over, but I don’t think that’s for me. I like to bake as a hobby, but doing it professionally is a whole other can of worms.”
He nodded.
“So why did you decide to go to medical school, Adam?”
“Probably because I was pre-med in college.” He winked.
“Funny. So what made you want to be a doctor?”
He shrugged, turning his wineglass by its stem. “I’m fascinated by the human body—the miracle of how it works and why, sometimes, it stops working so well. And when I was a kid and my grandpa got cancer, I remember telling him that I was going to be a doctor so I could fix him and make it go away.”
A lump rose in Nikki’s throat at the image.
Adam pressed his lips together and looked with infinite regret over the bay. “Of course, he died before I was even through junior high, but he took me very seriously. He said, ‘You do that, Adam. There are a lot of people like me out there who are going to need you. So study hard and pay attention.’ And I said, ‘Okay, Grandpa. I will.’”
The lump in Nikki’s throat grew larger. “So you want to go into oncology?”
“Yes,” he said. “Eventually.” He looked up at her. “It’ll take a while, you know.”
He said that with a slight, but very determined smile. She had no doubt that he would follow through. No doubt at all.
They shared a divine chocolate banana cake for dessert, along with top-notch cappuccinos.
“So what are your dreams, Nikki?”
She fiddled with her spoon. “Oh, besides paying off my medical debt, they’re pretty ordinary. I don’t need to set the world on fire. I grew up with just my mom, and things were hard for her. I guess if anything I’d like to help other women like her. Women who don’t have a lot of resources and who are bringing up kids on their own.”
“You didn’t know your dad?”
Nikki shook her head. “He didn’t stay around,” she said simply.
“Does that bother you?”
“Sure. Mostly, though, it makes me want two parents for my kids. And I would love to be able to stay home with them and watch them grow.”
“And what kind of guy is this other parent, your husband?” He looked at her speculatively.
You.
The thought popped into her mind and rattled her. Wow, where did that come from? No, no, no—she was
not
going to be a doctor’s starter wife like Aunt Dee. Absolutely not.
She cleared her throat and said with sarcasm, “Well, of course, he’d be a crack addict with no future who beat me daily and sold me on the street corner for his fixes.”
“Charming. Can’t wait to meet him.”
“Yeah, me, either.” She stared into Adam’s eyes and he gazed right back at her, his own quizzical and full of humor and a trace of promise.
She looked away first, because the intensity of the eye contact made her squirm. “So. You want kids?”
He nodded.
The odd, expectant silence between them was broken only when the waiter returned to ask if they needed anything else.
“No, thank you,” Nikki said.
The waiter nodded, retreated and reappeared with the check. Adam palmed it and paid it with cash. She never saw the total.
He got up and extended his hand to her. “Ready to go?”
She rose and linked her fingers with his. “I don’t want this evening to end. That was a wonderful dinner, Adam. Thank you.”
“Nobody’s ending anything.” He squeezed her hand. “We’re just beginning.”
They walked out of Azul into the spacious hotel and then down to the Mandarin’s private beach, a stunning strip of white sand. The wind caught Nikki’s hair and toyed with it, blowing it this way and that. She inhaled a breath of fresh air, which was tinged with salt and moonlight, and then bent to slip off her sandals. Her feet settled into the cool sand.
Adam toed off his shoes, too, and took her hand as they strolled along and gazed out at the silvery water. The rhythmic rush, lap and recession of the waves echoed in her ears, an age-old island poetry. The ribbonlike leaves of the royal palms bent and swayed in the breeze, whispering seductively about magic and the moon.
She stopped and drank in the night, dropping her shoes on the beach. Adam caressed her shoulders and the warmth of his touch had her shivering.
“Cold?” he asked.
She shook her head and turned toward him. He looked taller, darker, more mysterious in the moonlight…so masculine.
It was a given that she’d sleep with him again, despite her big speech about not being a booty call. She was very attracted to him, even if he wasn’t a good long-term choice.
He ran both his hands down her nude back, up again to her shoulders and neck, then into her hair. He bent and kissed her as if tasting a delicacy, something exotic.
He slipped inside her mouth, toyed with her tongue, bit her bottom lip gently. “Do you know how much I want you right now?” he said in a low, hoarse voice.
She shook her head.
In answer, he slid his hands down to her hips and then her ass, which he cupped and pulled against him. He was hard against her stomach. “I want to be inside you more than I want to breathe.”
Electricity hit all her nerve endings at once.
“I want to pull up your dress and take you right here, standing by the water—make you come until you don’t know your name.”
She imagined it, her breath coming in shallow, short pants.
“You’re not wearing any panties, Nikki. Are you?”
She shook her head.
“So I could do it. I could lift your skirt and slide right into you, and you could ride me—”
“Stop it.”
“Why?” His hands released her derriere and then she felt his thumbs dip under the fabric at either side of her breasts. He unerringly found her nipples and rubbed light circles over them until a sound almost like a sob left her throat and her breath came in ragged bursts.
“Stop, you have to stop…you can’t do this to me here.”
“I can’t?” Adam glanced over his shoulder to see if anyone was paying attention. Then he inched his fingers up the hem of her silk dress, blocking any curious eyes with his own body. He stroked her and the pleasure was so intense that she fell forward against him.
“You’re shamelessly wet, Nikki. Tell me what you want.”
With a moan, she rubbed herself against his fingers. She couldn’t help herself.
“You want me?”
“Yes!”
“Now?”
“Yes!”
He grinned, took his hand away and jerked her skirt down. “Bad girl, Nikki. You’re a very bad girl.”
She stared at him.
The wicked smile didn’t waver. “We can’t have sex in public. Are you trying to get us arrested?”
She was so hot that she didn’t care about the consequences, and he knew it.
“I’m going put my mouth where my fingers were, honey. And then I’m going to—”
“Get the car,” she begged.
And he laughed softly.
“Get the car before I—”
“Before you what, babe? Spontaneously combust?”
17
A BMW Z-4 WAS NO PLACE to have an orgasm. But as Nikki sat in the passenger seat, the powerful engine pulsed an insistent rhythm of vibrations at her core. She was already overstimulated from Adam’s beach foreplay, and a little wanton from the champagne.
Their headlong flight to his apartment was marred by several traffic lights, Adam screeching to a frustrated halt at each one.
Nikki shifted in her seat, but the vibrations didn’t get any less intense as they squealed up to a stop sign. Adam scorched her with a glance from his side of the car, and she began to feel short of breath again.
“Nikki?”
“Adam, it’s the weirdest thing, but I think I’m about to come—”
“No. Oh, no you don’t!” He gunned the engine and shot forward.
The accelerated vibrations made things worse. A deep tingle began between her thighs. “But I can’t help it…”
“Yes you can. Mind over matter.”